Changes to the famous one-child policy miss the point. Who will care for a graying population?

Carol Yang is convinced she has it all. Her mother isn't so sure. True, Yang has a job at an international public relations firm and is married to a loving husband. But Yang doesn't have any children, and her mother worries about that. "She thinks that I'm not a complete woman if I don't have kids," says Yang, 33, a manager in Shanghai. "But I tell her that times have changed and that children are no longer the measure of a successful woman."

Yang's attitude should hearten China's womb police, who have spent two decades attempting to control the nation's population....